Last weekend my wife and I started to head out on a trail and see as high as we could get to the top of Mount Ogden before we wore out. We started out around 8. I would recommend getting an hour or two sooner start to get through most of the hard stuff before the cool of the night starts to wear off if you are hiking on a hot summer day. I also think that 27th street trail head might have been a more direct route after looking at the map while venturing up the 29th street trail head. We ended up getting a little turned around and ended up walking past the 27th street trail head anyway. We ended up in the bouldering field past 27th street. The bouldering field was interesting.
What is a bouldering field? I'm not sure. I've been searching on line and it looks like bouldering is some sort of rock climbing. I didn't see anything in this area that looked like you could rock climb. All we saw was an area of chucks of rock on the ground. It was a interesting space to explore, but not a place where you could rock climb and not the place where we wanted to be headed to.
We got over there because we somehow ended up on Bonneville Shoreline Trail. We needed to be on Taylor Canyon Trail. I think we got off on the wrong trail right from the start. They both seem to bunch up around the 29th street trail head.
Once we got to the Malan trail the views were great. We were able to look over the city, down the canyon, and at the rocky parts of the mountain around.
Leaving Taylor Canyon and entering Malan's Basin Trail we crossed a little wooden bridge. This is the first switch back. It is a little bit of work, but at the next switch back there is a great overlook for the city. Before getting there we stopped and sat and had a snack at a wide part of the trail, which there aren't many.
The trail from there had a lot of views of the canyon. There were a couple of places where you are in the sun for a stretch and it feels a little desolate, but with big payoffs of Douglas Fir trees and Malan's Peak.
The hike is very steep at times and very narrow at times. At one point you have to cross what feels like a boulder. It is a beautiful rock formation, but you have to traverse a washed away area of the rock all very close to the edge. At the same time, below we could see a waterfall, which one hiker we met at that point on the trail described as looking very man made. Like the water had been diverted.
I remember commenting at one point that it was a fresh smelling trail from the ever greens and such I suppose.
In spite of the ruggedness of the trail we saw several people over 50 on the trail.
This is a link to a brief description of the trail http://www.utah.com/thingtodo27442.htm
Spring 2011
The last time we went we stopped at Malan's Peak and did not continue on to Malan's Basin where the old Hotel was. After going up and up the last time I did not want want to go down and then have to go back up. When you leave Malan's Peak you go down at first and I had no idea what was going to happen from there. You do go down a bit and then back up some.
We hiked down onto a path that went through some thick growth. After a while of some more strenuous hiking we got to the basin.
Once we got to the basin there was a great stream there that eventually leads to the top of the waterfall in Waterfall Canyon. It was very full with the wet winter and spring we have had.
We looked up at Mount Ogden. It was an angle we had never seen it from. We could see the snow on the face that is usually hidden from view and the sun by the basin. It was pretty cool.
We went to see if we could follow the stream to the top of the waterfall. We went down a little trail, but the growth got thicker and thicker as we got in and it made me nervous with all of the rattle snakes we have seen in the fall and this spring. We backed out and headed back. I had been taking the lead, but when we reverse my wife was in the lead. She had startled a rattlesnake on her way by. The snake darted in my direction, apparently not seeing me, but trying to get away from her. Scared me and I think the snake too. Fortunately it changed its direction and headed out into the bush.
We saw the plaque for the hotel that use to be up there, where apparently Teddy Roosevelt stayed.
I have been spending a bit of time this year with a World War II vet in our congregation at church. I found out that his middle name is Malan and one of his relatives owned the property. He said that his mother had spent a lot of time up there at the hotel with the family.
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